politics for the 99%

… Donald Trump should stay out of it – Published on Independent.co.uk, by Patrick Cockburn, March 10, 2017.

The Trump administration’s first counter-terrorism operation was a failure for the US and much worse for the Yemeni villagers who are dead, wounded, homeless and have seen their livestock, on which they depended for their livelihoods, all killed … //

… A bizarre element in Trump’s decision to take the offensive against Iran in Yemen is that the Iranians provide very little financial and military aid to the Houthis. Saudi propaganda, often echoed by the international media, speaks of the Houthis as “Iran-backed”, but Yemen is almost entirely cut off from the outside world by Saudi ground, air and sea forces.

Even food imports, on which Yemenis are wholly reliant, are more and more difficult to bring in through the half-wrecked port of Hodeida on the western coast.

The resumption of the supply of precision-guided munitions is not the first indication that the Trump administration sees Yemen as a good place to put into operation a more hawkish strategy in the region. On 29 January, days after he took office, Trump sent some 30 members of US Navy Seal Team 6, backed by helicopters, to attack an impoverished village called al Ghayil in al-Bayda province in southern Yemen. The purpose of the raid, according to the Pentagon, was intelligence-gathering – though it may well have been a failed attempt to kill or capture Qassim al Rimi, the head of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Whatever the aim of the attack, it swiftly turned into a bloody fiasco, with as many 29 civilians in al Ghayil killed along with one Seal, Chief Petty Officer William Owens. The Pentagon’s explanation of what happened sounds very much like similar attempts to explain away civilian killed and wounded over the past half century in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq. The head of the US military’s central command, General Joseph Votel, told a Senate hearing that between four and 12 civilians might have died in the raid, adding that an “exhaustive after-action review” had not found incompetence, poor decision making or bad judgement.

For its part, the Trump administration tried to shut down any investigation into what had really happened at al Ghayil by saying that an inquiry would be an affront into the legacy of the fallen Seal, William Owens. This stance was swiftly criticised by the father of the dead man, Bill Owens, who said the government owed his son an inquiry. “Don’t hide behind my son’s death to prevent an investigation,” he said … //

… International media coverage tends to focus on the wars in Syria and Iraq, but in those countries Trump and the Pentagon are largely following the policies and plans of Obama.

It is in Yemen that new policies are beginning to emerge as the Trump administration carries out its first counter-terrorism operation against al Qaeda – if that was what it was – leading to the slaughter of civilians and a botched cover-up. Yemen may soon join Afghanistan and Iraq as wars in which the US wishes it had never got involved.

(full text).

Links:

Employers can ban wearing of visible religious symbols – top EU court, on RT,March 14, 2017;

Mexico looks to increased Russian, EU trade with NAFTA uncertainty, on RT,March 14, 2017;

Native American tribe may have been wiped out by asteroid – study, on RT,March 14, 2017: the Clovis people were a prehistoric Native American culture that existed roughly 13,200 to 12,900 years ago who suddenly died out at the end of the last Ice Age, along with 35 iconic species of animals with little or no explanation as to why – until now …;

hochgeladen von Mediathek TV:
Hier Freiheit leben, dort Erdogan wählen, wie passt das zusammen – Hart aber Fair vom 13.03.2017, 68.20 min, am 13. März 2017;
Minister-Gipfel: Welcher Weg führt aus der Krise mit der Türkei – Anne Will vom 12. März 2017, 59.22 min, am 12. März 2017;

Volker Pispers in BESTFORM, 12.51 min, uploaded by System Crash, Feb 7, 2017;

US – Tiny Houses for the Homeless, An Affordable Solution Catches On, on Charter For Compassion.org, by Erika Lundahl, not dated: a growing number of towns and cities have found a practical solution to homelessness through the construction of tiny-house villages—and housing officials are taking notice;

… and this:

• The Long Night of Music Cultures 2014 – the New Masters of Mugam, 36.13 min, uploaded by hfmFRANZLISZTweimar … “The New Masters of Mugam” are young masters of the Azerbaijan National Conservatory in Baku, where the centuries-old Mugam tradition has been taught and cultivated for decades. The University of Music FRANZ LISZT Weimar / Transcultural Music Studies invited “The New Masters of Mugam” to the Long Night of Music Cultures on 3 July 2014 … (full text).